NGI International Task Review MS109 Italy
User Services
Human Services (Table 1)
EGI-InSPIRE | EGI_DS | Name | Assessment | Score | How to Improve |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
NA3.3N | U-N-3 U-N-13 | Requirements Gathering | write here | 0-5 | write here |
NA3.3N | U-N-14 U-N-15 | Application Database | A national instance of the application DB is hosted at INFN-Catania and managed by IGI. This has been discussed during the EGI User Forum in Amsterdam. The DB table contains some extensions with respect to the central EGI one in order to satisfy the italian user communities' needs. | 4 | sincronization between the italian instance and the central one is needed (and already planned) |
NA3.3N | U-N-16 U-N-17 | Training | write here | 0-5 | write here |
NA3.3N | U-N-12 U-N-18 U-N-19 | Consultancy | write here | 0-5 | write here |
Operations Services
Human Services (Table 2)
EGI-InSPIRE | EGI_DS | Name | Assessment | Score | How to Improve |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
SA1.4N | O-N-9 | Requirements Gathering | your assessment here | 0-5 | how to improve |
SA1.1N | O-N-9 | Operations Coordination | write here | 0-5 | write here |
SA1.2N | O-N-9 | Security | IGI CSIRT has been set up and is operational. A Task Force to evaluate the software vulnerabilities and the countermeasures has been set up in order to speed up and ease the system administrators work. The national incident response procedures have been improved with the definition of the roles of all the involved partners, belonging to different institutions and domains. | 3 | Improvements of the security monitoring system (through a dedicated national monitoring framework and the development of security probes) and an auditing activity (in collaboration with other groups doing similar activities at the national level) would improve the overall security |
Infrastructure Services (Table 3)
EGI-InSPIRE | EGI_DS | Name | Assessment | Score | How to Improve |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
SA1.3N | O-N-9 | Software Rollout | write here | 0-5 | write here |
SA1.4N | O-N-3 | Monitoring | write here | 0-5 | write here |
SA1.5N | O-N-2 | Accounting | write here | 0-5 | write here |
SA1.4N | O-N-1 O-N-4 | Configuration Repository and Operations Portal | write here | 0-5 | write here |
SA1.6N SA1.7N | O-N-6 O-N-7 | Helpdesk | A regional Ticketing system based on XOOPS/XHELP is operational since EGEE era. It is interfaced to GGUS via web services and it provides helpdesk services for both national and international user communities. | 4 | Although the system is working properly, its maintenance and evolution is done by IGI only. The adoption of a more widely used and supported tool should be evaluated in order to improve sustainability |
SA1.8N | O-N-5 O-N-8 | Core Services | write here | 0-5 | write here |
Other (Table 4)
EGI-InSPIRE | EGI_DS | Name | Assessment | Score | How to Improve |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
NA2.3N | Policy Development | The activity consisted in the participation to the SPG meetings and to IGI policy groups related to security and operations. | 2 | A clearer definition of what has to be implemented would help people to contribute to the policy development work | |
NA2.2N | E-N-2 | Dissemination | During the first year of the EGI-Inspire project, the Italian National Grid Initiative has reinforced and well established the sets already started with the EGEE series of projects.
In particular more efforts have been dedicated to the organization of some communication strategies aiming at a wider and better knowledge of the Italian Infrastructure, its usability, its features and the benefits one can get by using it for work. In particular different environments and communities have been selected to address the message, such as new SMEs, new research areas, and some fields of the Public Administration. Some specific meetings have been organized where details on the infrastructure were given by technical experts and some case studies were presented. A good feedback was collected. Participation to major national and international events has been realized. Booths in computing related events have been set up, where posters have been exhibited and demos have been presented. Brochures and leaflets have been updated or brand new ones made and widely spread and distributed in all the above mentioned occasions. A video with all practical application of the Grid Infrastructure to the various fields of research has been done and made run at the SC10 event. A sort of a closer cooperation with the training team has been tried. All dissemination material has usually been distributed to the courses attendants. Students and young researchers seem to be the most interested ones. Their feedback on brochure contents is a positive one and many of them show deeper interest in grid and starts attending courses and, thereafter, using grid for their research. Surveys and interviews on the level of knowledge/awareness about the grid have been practiced and some on specific needs have been collected. Feedback have been gathered, although, they are usually discouraging, considered the level of awareness of the non-user. |
4 | Critical
Relationship with the press and non-specialized journalists is critical. They still feel the Grid topic a difficult one to understand and to write about. Grid is still seen by the majority of people as a tool for just specific sectors of knowledge and production. Still, much there needs to be done, in order to enlarge the awareness of the grid usefulness among many sectors of social and productive life. When contacted, the press replies just if the news is a “breaking” one (everybody seem to be expecting the Higgs Boson Found). Releases, improvements and development of the existent features, do not seem to attract the press attention. Being too general in writing articles ends up in resulting banal and, on the other hand, being too specific with technical details ends up in something not easily understandable by non experts. This is thus a strange circle and makes it difficult to reach the objective, which is that of enlarging the fields of awareness. More specific courses, trainings, tutorials should be kept with students, managers, stakeholders, decision makers in order to explain to a wider audience what grid is and how it has already changed the way of doing research, business, etc. This means, though, that a deeper knowledge of other fields needs is necessary. Dissemination team and training team should interact more strictly. This is what, as local NGI is being pursued. Unfortunately funding and efforts allocated are not always adequate to the amount of work that needs to be done. |